Actility secures €16 million to lead the boom in low-power IoT market and propel sector consolidation

While artificial intelligence grabs all the attention in the news, there’s another sector quietly making waves, and it’s not getting the recognition it deserves, despite nearing $1 trillion in spending. According to recent research by Statista indicates that global spending on the Internet of Things (IoT) is approaching $1 trillion in 2023. The IoT encompasses a network of interconnected objects capable of collecting and exchanging data through embedded sensors.

Roughly half of this substantial investment is anticipated to originate from the manufacturing, transport, and utility sectors. The business applications of IoT span various areas, including predictive maintenance, data monitoring, streamlining production processes, automated inventory management, and the tracking and tracing of products or animals.

However, the widespread adoption of automated monitoring and control systems faces challenges due to connectivity issues, a hurdle that Actility, a French-founded global IoT startup, aims to address.

What sets Actility apart is its low-power, wide-area networking technology, facilitating long-range communication among connected devices. The company, a key player in the low-power industrial IoT market, aims to optimize both costs and power consumption requirements, thereby overcoming the impediments associated with connectivity in the implementation of IoT solutions.

Today, Actility announced a substantial €16 million funding boost, marking a significant milestone for the IoT industry. This comes on the heels of the company’s impressive €70 million fundraising in 2017, where major telecom operators such as Orange, KPN, Inmarsat, Foxconn, and Swisscom, along with backers like Bpifrance, BNP Paribas, Ginko Ventures, Indinvest, Bosch, Cisco, and Mulliez Creadev, showed their support.

Actility will use the fresh capital infusion to propel its industrial IoT solutions, expanding its research and development team, creating innovative roaming solutions, and making strategic acquisitions to fuel its growth trajectory.

This funding round not only underscores Actility’s remarkable growth but also signifies a pivotal moment for the advancement of LoRaWAN technology. The company is committed to driving innovation, expanding its global reach, and ushering in an era of enhanced connectivity and intelligent solutions that contribute to a smarter, more sustainable world.

Founded in 2010 by a team of seasoned tech entrepreneurs, Actility anticipated the transformative power of massive IoT deployment as the next technological revolution. Leveraging real-time field data, Actility utilizes AI to promote sustainable agricultural and industrial practices by enhancing agility, optimizing processes, reducing waste, and mitigating risks.

In a statement, Actility founder and CEO Olivier Hersent said: “Due to its vast-reaching and industrial nature, the maturation of IoT technology took longer than anticipated. However, we have now entered a phase of steady growth, with enterprise adoption nearly doubling each year, propelled by widespread digitization. AI cannot operate without data, and our technology anchors AI to the real world across numerous industries.”

Hersent, who is also the co-inventor of LoRaWAN technology, and a founding board member of the LoRa Alliance, positioned Actility as a primary partner for service providers rolling out industrial-scale LPWAN networks. Recognizing the increasing demand for robust and scalable IoT solutions, the company expanded its offerings with ThingPark Enterprise, a comprehensive platform supporting both LoRaWAN and emerging private cellular networks like CBRS. This platform seamlessly integrates field operations with cloud-based AI, ensuring data consistency and compatibility.

In a statement, Actility’s founder and CEO, Olivier Hersent, noted the prolonged maturation of IoT technology due to its vast-reaching and industrial nature. However, he highlighted the current phase of steady growth, with enterprise adoption nearly doubling each year, driven by widespread digitization. Hersent emphasized the crucial role of Actility’s technology in anchoring AI to the real world across various industries.

According to a report from marketsandmarket.com, the IoT LoRa and LoRaWAN market is expected to reach $25.5 billion in 2028, up from $5.6 billion in 2023, with an impressive average annual growth rate of 35.3%.

Since its inception over a decade ago, Actility has set the pace in the LPWAN market, connecting over 4 million devices and managing ThingPark-operated LPWAN networks with over 40,000 base stations. With a remarkable year-over-year growth rate for enterprise networks exceeding 75%, Actility stands out with its consistent market share expansion and its vital role in consolidating the IoT ecosystem.